Tag Archives: NATO

By Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO allies on Tuesday welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to commit more forces to Afghanistan, as part of a new U.S. strategy he said would require more troops and funding from America’s partners. Having run for the White House last year on a pledge to withdraw swiftly from Afghanistan, Trump reversed course on Monday and promised a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents, saying: “Our troops will fight to win”. U.S. officials said he had signed off on plans to send about 4,000 more U.S. troops to add to the roughly 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan.

Romanian soldiers from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan killed an Afghan policeman who was trying to carry out an insider attack after a training session in the southern province of Kandahar on Saturday, officials said. One Romanian was wounded in the attack while an Afghan policeman was wounded in the crossfire, a statement from Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul said. “The advisers had completed a scheduled law enforcement training and were preparing to return to base when they were attacked by a member of the Afghan National Civil Order Police,” the statement said.

The United States deployed a battery of Patriot ground-to-air missiles in Lithuania on Tuesday as part of multinational NATO exercises in the the Baltic country, its defence ministry announced. The deployment “reflects the firm engagement of the United States to ensure Lithuania’s security and its readiness to send strategic capability to the region,” a ministry statement said. The missiles will return home after the NATO exercises, called Tobruq Legacy 2017 end on July 22, said ministry spokeswoman Ausra Vaitkeviciute.

Donald Trump has made his most explicit commitment yet that America will come to the defence of its Nato allies – a day before a much-anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin. The US President had been criticised during his first visit to Europe when he failed to refer to Nato’s Article 5, that part of its charter that commits members to the idea of mutual defence. “To those who would criticise our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated – not merely with its words but with its actions – that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defence commitment,” Mr Trump said.

Donald Trump reportedly lambasted Nato allies at a dinner in Brussels, hours after he had already reproached them for not spending enough on defence. The President has expressed scepticism of the 29-member alliance, and it wasn’t until Friday that he reaffirmed the US’s commitment to mutual defence of Nato members after weeks of uncertainty. The US is currently one of five countries of the alliance that meets NATO members’ pledge to spend 2 per cer of GDP on defence. …

Russia on Friday accused NATO of increasing the threat of conflict, insisting attempts by the US-led alliance to curb Moscow have left ties at their lowest ebb since the USSR collapsed. “At present NATO-Russian relations are at their worst since the end of the Cold War,” the foreign ministry in Moscow said in a statement. The ministry said NATO was pursuing a policy of “containment” towards Russia that has seen it bolster its forces along the country’s border in eastern Europe.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Meeting fellow NATO leaders for the first time, President Donald Trump aggressively challenged them Thursday to spend more on their own defense, putting the alliance under exceptional pressure to become tougher, sharper and newly relevant.

President Trump literally pushed his way to the front of the world stage at the Brussels NATO summit Thursday. He shoved NATO leader Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro out of the way, which happens to be the newest alliance member.